In the world of educational assessment, assessment design is just beginning to emerge as a discipline, as a practice, and as an application for a number of reasons. An assessment is a machine for reasoning about what students know, can do, or have accomplished, based on a handful of things they say, do, or make in a particular setting. Any assessment is more than this, of course. All assessments are embedded in a cultural setting, and address social purposes both stated and implicit. Assessments communicate values, standards and expectations. Some assessments are opportunities to extend learning. Other assessments don't even look like assessments as we usually think of them (i.e., as high-stakes standardized tests); they look like conversations between students and teachers, or one student with another.
In assessment design, our concern is with the scheme that they all have in common: the reasoning that relates the particular things students say or do, to what they know or can do as more broadly conceived. Therefore, assessment design is the creation of the underlying scheme that governs the implementation, delivery and maintenance of an assessment. In educational assessment (also known as educational testing) the relevant underlying scheme is the validity argument, i.e., the model-based substantive and statistical argument that constitutes a defensible rationale for using a particular assessment for a particular purpose. Assessment design entails the development, construction and arrangement of specialized information elements, or assessment design objects, into specifications that represent the model-based validity argument that underlies any educational assessment.
To our knowledge, the Portal Assessment Design System of the present invention is the only assessment design system in existence. This section includes a description of prior art generally related to the emerging discipline encompassing the Portal Assessment Design System of the present invention.